Scientists find missing proteins in triple-negative breast cancer

Genes that are potential targets for therapeutic drugs against aggressive breast cancer have been identified by scientists at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS).

Nearly one in seven of the 1.5million women diagnosed with the disease annually have triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), with tumors missing three important proteins found in other types of breast cancer. The absence of these three proteins make TNBC patients succumb to a higher rate of relapse following treatment and have lower overall survival rates.

Using integrated genomic approaches, GIS scientists led by Qiang Yu searched for targets that can be affected by drugs. The scientists discovered that a protein tyrosine phosphatase1, called UBASH3B, is over-expressed in one third of TNBC patients. There is currently no effective therapy for TNBC.